I try to get
up into the mountains every year to flush my soul
of the
burdens accumulated from dealing with everyday
life. I recently returned
from a two-week backpacking trek through Philmont
Scout Ranch as the Crew
Advisor for a group of young Scouts and Venturers.
Philmont is a 215 square
mile paradise located in the rugged Sangre de
Cristo range of the Rocky
Mountains in northern New Mexico. Of all the
mountains I have ever climbed
and the wilderness I have ever explored, Philmont
is my favorite. There, I
can immerse myself into a past that I first experienced as a teenager, and
have intimately come to know as an adult. It's my way of escaping from
civilization back to the majesty of nature's
wilderness.

But just what is the wilderness, and why is it
important? Without
wilderness, the world is a cage. Hiking into the
wilderness means getting
away from everyday life as we have come to know it
and getting back to a
more primitive way of experiencing nature.
Backpacking is nothing more than
a longer, more intense hike into the wilderness. A
backpacking experience
means different things to different people. To
some, it is a physical
challenge - a test of one's endurance or stamina. To others, it is a
knowledge adventure - a chance to learn how and why
things exist in the
natural environment. But to all, it is a firsthand
personal learning
experience - a chance to learn about one's self,
and how we fit into the
overall scheme of the world around us.

"Wilderness holds more answers to more questions
than we yet know
how to ask." - Nancy Newhall in This is the
American Earth

Backpacking is more than just hiking and looking
around. To get the most
out of the experience, you need to change the way
you see and think about
the things around you. You need to fully immerse
yourself into the
experience; to become a part of nature rather than
just an observer.

"Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee." - Job
12:8

The following story illustrates how my personal
thinking about the
wilderness has changed over the years:

"There, in a high fork of a quaking aspen, a dark
small shape stands against
the sky. I rest below it. My companion, a lone hawk
owl, regards me with
brief curiosity, gives an avian shrug, and looks
off towards the Tooth of
Time. I try to put myself in its feathers, see with
its eyes, and feel the
lightness of its bones in the wind. As the first
star flickers against the
cold blue of space, the owl and I pause together,
fellow travelers in hard,
lonely country. I am overcome with quiet gratitude
for life - the owl's and
my own - and for all the others who left their
telltale signs and tracks
around me."

Thirty or forty years ago, I'm not sure I would
have understood. The owl
would have been a momentary curiosity. I'd have
stopped briefly, maybe
waved my arms to see it fly, and moved on, vaguely
unsatisfied. As a young
man, I often missed the nuances of smaller moments,
the ones that often hold
the most profound truths of our existence. I wanted
a point-blank grizzly,
a pack of wolves, or a double rainbow each time out
- or better yet, all
three at once. Of course the country was too
sparse, the nature of life too
diffused for that sort of nonstop melodrama. I set
myself up for almost
continual disappointment.

A by-product of my drive for big thrills was a
systematic, willful ignorance
of the country I thought I knew. The extent of all
I didn't know, and told
myself I didn't care about, would have shocked me
if I'd been able to look
down from some great height. I remember a time, not
so long ago, when any
bird smaller than a robin was of little interest,
and I never stopped to
wonder if that flicker in the brush was a dark-eyed
junco or a redpoll, let
alone a Wilson's warbler. The ground at my feet was
a collection of, well,
plants and rocks. Sure, I could recognize poison
ivy, and I knew the
difference between sandstone and granite, but my
knowledge went only as far
as the dictates of utility or simple chance
required.

Like many who came of age during the fifties, I
feared and hated forest
fires. Unduly influenced by Smokey the Bear, I
thought fire to be an evil
menace that destroyed the wilderness. Only now have
I come to realize that
fire is an essential step in the natural
continuation of the forest
environment. Looking back, it's easy to understand
why I thought so many
parts of nature inconsequential. True respect
seldom grows out of
ignorance.

I wish I could say there came a momentous change of
sorts, one defining,
instantaneous breakthrough when my perspective
altered. I can't point to a
moment or even a year as a turning point. I think,
in fact, that there was
none; each day was a step on a faint, looping
trail, one that doubled back,
faded out, then reappeared. Something was changing,
I knew, each time I
ventured out into the wilderness. But the change
was not about seeing. It
was about sensing an entirely new paradigm, the
essential dignity, worth,
and value of all living things. The life and death
of a red-backed vole or
a white-crowned sparrow was just as dramatic, just
as noble, as that of a
mountain lion, if you only leaned in and watched.

There's little doubt that photography played a part
in the way I saw. The
more time I spent looking into a viewfinder, the
more I found myself
funneling down on small details - nuances of light,
the exact shape of a
leaf, the glint of an eye.

I began to carry along my bird, plant, tree, and
rock books, and to study
them at home when I wasn't outdoors. Lives and
stories began to unfold,
each a mystery. The more I knew, the more I
realized the extent of my
ignorance. But it was precisely this understanding,
arriving at the point
where I sensed the beauty of all I didn't know,
that changed my way of
seeing. As living things, we are all bonded by the
same essential truth:
There will never be enough time, and each life is,
in a sense, our own.
Like a lone hawk owl at dusk, we wait, our bones
frail in the wind."

Each mile along the trail brought a new and
exciting discovery: Anasazi
petroglyphs that have marked the cliffs for
centuries, prehistoric
Tyrannosaurus Rex footprints etched forever in
hardened mud flats, and scars
from forest fires both recent and ancient. We found
traces of man's impact
on the land, ranging from abandoned logging
railroad right-of-ways to
miners' shacks and trappers' cabins. Soon we lost track of the number of
deer, elk and other wildlife whose homes we were
sharing.

With each passing day, we became stronger. As our
senses became accustomed
to the sights, sounds and smells, we became almost
one with the wilderness
itself. We witnessed thunderstorms that far
exceeded the display of any
man-made light show and experienced the power of a
sudden flash flood down a
narrow canyon. We were pelted with rain and hail,
and survived freezing
nights and blistering days. We climbed sheer rock
walls just so that we
could rappel back down again. And throughout it
all, we left no trace of
our ever being there.

Every evening after dinner our small group would
gather around the campsite
and reflect upon our experiences of the day in an
exercise we called "Thorns
and Roses." Each of us would, in turn, tell the
others of the one thing we
liked least and the one thing we liked best about
our day. This sharing of
emotions and baring of the soul allowed others to
empathize with our
personal feelings, and to better understand the
group dynamics that affected
our team as a whole.

Afterwards, someone would invariably begin singing
the "Philmont Hymn," a
song originally written by John Westfall and now
handed down from one
generation of Philmont backpackers to the next.
Soon all would join in, and
the melody would loft softly into the twilight.
Later, we would head
silently to our tents, tired and ready for rest,
but eagerly awaiting the
adventures yet to follow.

Silver on the sage,
Starlit skies above
Aspen covered hills
Country that I love
Philmont, here's to thee,
Scouting Paradise,
Out in God's country ---
tonight.

Wind in whispr'ing pines
Eagles soaring high
Purple mountains rise
Against an azure sky.
Philmont, here's to thee,
Scouting Paradise,
Out in God's country ---
tonight.

All too soon our wonderful experience neared
completion. I know all of us
dreaded leaving the wilderness and returning to
base camp. On the final
morning, we all got up before daybreak and climbed
the rugged Tooth of Time
in the darkness. Sitting there on the summit, we
watched in awe as the
glorious sunrise gave birth to a new day. Mere
words and photographs cannot
do justice to the impact of that simple event. The
aches and pains from the
trail flowed from us as we were bathed in the warm
sunlight. Like the new
day, each of us was reborn and re-energized, ready
to face the challenges of
civilization once again.

Nature created this wonderland over millions of
years. Philmont is an
impressive place, grander than any man-made
cathedral or monument. Savor
it, become part of it, and you'll realize that this
beauty isn't just the
result of nature's destructive forces wearing away
at the land, or of man's
feeble attempts to conquer it. Time created this
place and serves us all
lessons, if we're willing to listen and learn.

If you spend enough time in
such a place, an ancient and subtle sense of
reverence is called forth, as
is silence and respect. Heed this signal, rest with
it patiently, let the
land steady you, and eventually, you'll be rewarded
with a gift of knowing.